Praying for something bad to happen

“Worrying is like praying for something bad to happen.” A great quote sometimes attributed to Robert Downey Jr. that’s helped me more than once. Most recently, due to scheduling conflicts, we had to change the date of our Nashville event with Deepak Chopra. And I began to worry. Or better put, pray for something bad to happen. A habitual pattern that’s been reinforced since I was a child. With its background belief system being – If you don’t worry about something then you likely won’t do anything about? Right? Wrong.

When the date for our Deepak event changed, I could have embraced the worry and allowed the anxiety to propel me to action, “fixing” the “problem.” Something I’ve done too many times to count. But I didn’t. With the mindful practice I’ve cultivated, I began to observe my reaction to this imaginary problem. There really was no problem at all, only a challenge with a solution.

The fifth of life’s great illusions says that impossible exists. A false state reinforced by an attachment to the details or your local self, with the associated low expectations. Something you can transcend with a different perspective. One that isn’t local at all. You are infinitely more than you believe. And while this may not seem so real to you today, with a daily practice, it’s a truth you’ll soon come to believe.

Eckhart Tolle’s says that “Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose…Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.” Your anxiety is associated with your thought on a subject, Not the actual subject. Realize this the next time you have a worrisome thought. Take a deep breath and use it as a cue to observe it. Logically find the life lesson. If something “bad” is happening in your life, deal with it. But begin to train yourself to not worry about it. It does not help. At all.